The present invention relates generally to data displays, and more particularly to displays of multiple overlapping sets of data.
In many fields, scientists must make sense of and find patterns in large amounts of data. One example of this is in the field of metabolomics, the study of metabolic changes in response to perturbations, such as a drug or disease. Metabolomics blends statistical analysis with analytical chemistry techniques such as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, mass spectrometry (MS) and chromatography. Predicted to become the center of drug discovery and development, metabolomics may lead to earlier, faster, and more accurate diagnosis for many diseases.
In general, when displaying large amounts of data simultaneously, it can be very difficult, if not impossible, to visualize trends in the data using traditional display systems. For example, FIG. 1 illustrates an example of a traditional graphical representation of a plurality of IR spectra. Each spectrum is arbitrarily assigned a different unique color. While there is clearly overlap between the different spectra, it is difficult, if not impossible, with this traditional type of stacked data display to visualize the areas of highest overlap among the IR spectra displayed.
Therefore it is desirable to provide systems and methods that overcome the above and other problems. Such systems and methods should provide useful displays of overlapping data, and should allow for flexible manipulation of the data displays to provide enhanced data mining and trend visualization capabilities.